Black on Screen: Mapping the Transnational Hip-Hop Revolution

Black on Screen: A Century of Radical Visual Culture continues with “100 Years of Black Music on Camera.” From Jazz, to Funk, to Hip-Hop, this season celebrates the sonic archive of Black life as seen and heard on film. The 2026 season begins with Mapping the Transnational Hip-Hop Revolution, tracing the evolution of Black sound across decades and continents, highlighting how Black music has scored social and cultural movements through the moving image, shaping global popular culture.

Since its inception in the South Bronx in 1973, Hip-Hop has echoed across borders, informing music genres across the African diaspora and beyond, from the Caribbean’s reggaeton to Brazil’s baile funk. Join us for an evening of screenings of Lisandro Perez Rey’s La Fabri_k/ The Cuban Hip Hop Factory and Hali Halisi: Rap as an Alternative Medium in Tanzania (1999), sourced from the Schomburg Center’s Hip-Hop Education Center Collection, available in our Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division. These two works capture Hip-Hop as not simply a genre, but an instrument of people’s power, vital to social and political movement work from Cuba to Tanzania.

Screenings will be followed by talkback with Hip-Hop Education Center founder Martha Diaz, with Schomburg Curatorial Specialist, Daniella Brito and Archivist, Ornella Baganizi.

Hali Halisi: Rap as an Alternative Medium in Tanzania, 1999 directed by Martin Meulenberg

Runtime: 31 min

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La Fabri_k/ The Cuban Hip Hop Factory, 2004 Directed by Lisandro Perez Rey.

Runtime: 62 min

Accessibility requests can be made by e-mail [email protected].

Black on Screen: A Century of Radical Visual Culture, captures 100 years of local and transnational Black movement work and artistic evolution on film. Sourced from The Schomburg’s collection and others, it takes a kaleidoscopic look at Black life and expression across diasporas, rendering a range of storytelling traditions that incite and inspire Black world-building. The Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division (MIRS, pronounced “meers”) at the Schomburg Center collects and preserves audio and moving image (AMI) materials related to the experiences of people of African descent. The division has amassed nearly 400 collections, approximately 5,000 square feet, in a variety of formats, which captures the gestures and sounds of major historical, artistic and cultural moments and influencers. While the strength is the Black American holdings there is considerable Caribbean and African representation in the collection.

This year, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture continues celebrating the 100th anniversary of its founding! Join us all year long for a wide array of special events, exhibitions, and more as we celebrate this milestone and continue the legacy of Arturo Schomburg.

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FIRST COME, FIRST SEATED Events are free and open to all, but due to space constraints registration is requested. Registered guests are given priority check-in 15 to 30 minutes before start time. After the event starts all registered seats are released regardless of registration, so we recommend that you arrive early. We generally overbook to ensure a full house.

GUESTS Please note that holding seats in the Langston Hughes Auditorium is strictly prohibited and there is no food or drinks allowed anywhere in the Schomburg Center.

ACCESSIBLILITY Accessibility requests can be made by e-mail [email protected].

E-TRANSPORTATION NYPL policy prohibits electric transportation devices (e.g., motorbikes, e-bikes, e-scooters, e-skateboards) from being brought into or stored at library sites for any length of time, as this is the best way to keep our spaces & people safe.

AUDIO/VIDEO RECORDING Programs are photographed and recorded by the Schomburg Center. Attending this event indicates your consent to being filmed/photographed and your consent to the use of your recorded image for any all purposes of the New York Public Library.

PRESS Please send all press inquiries (photo, video, interviews, audio-recording, etc) at least 24-hours before the day of the program to Leah Drayton at [email protected].

Please note that personal and professional video recordings are prohibited without expressed consent.

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Host or Publisher Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture